Page 19 of Tinsel & Chrome

Ezekial

There’s a frantic knock on the door, and Kiera storms in with Chaos. I can tell she’s been crying because her face is blotchy. I stare at her, waiting to see what the issue is.

“Someone took Trixie,”

she manages to spurt out before bursting into tears again. Chaos is soothing her, then looks at me.

“The girls saw a man grab her and punch her in the face to knock her out. He threw her in his car before the girls could get over to him.”

I feel my heart squeezing. I can’t lose her.

“Do we know who it was?”

I ask, but I really want to ask, who has the balls to fuck with us?

Kiera sniffles.

“I think it was her ex. She described him to me before.”

She starts sobbing again.

“Ezekial I am so sorry. I tried.”

“Kiera you would’ve gotten hurt as well if you got in the middle of it. We will find her. You can guarantee that.”

I hesitantly pat her shoulder.

“Do you know what kind of car it is? Or what his name is?”

She sniffs again, then shakes her head.

“I mean, I don’t know his name. I do know that the car is a black Subaru. A newer one.”

I feel my anxiety overwhelming me for a moment, then she pipes up, “She keeps a diary. I can look through that to see if I can find his name.”

I nod. She runs out of the room to go grab it, and Chaos stands there awkwardly.

“Pres, what can I do?”

“Help find his name. I will kill him for touching her. Right now, I need all the info I can get. Can you get the store’s camera footage and see if it covers the parking lot?”

He nods and leaves. I want to fucking destroy somebody. He’s already hit her in the face. He better not try anything else. She’s strong, and I know she can take the hit, but if he rapes her, she may not come back the same person.

I punch the wall. Motherfucker! Why didn’t I send a prospect or someone with them? This is my fucking fault. When I find this son of a bitch and see how strong he really is. Beating up a woman makes him the biggest pussy in the world. I’m a fucking pit bull, and I will decimate him.

Trixie

I wake up with a pounding headache. I go to touch my face, and I realize my hands are tied with zip ties. Shit. I’m tied to a wooden chair. It all comes crashing back to me. Billy. He did this to me. Slowly opening one eye at a time, I see him sitting across the room. He’s twirling a knife with his finger.

“It’s about fucking time you woke up. You are getting weak. You pass out after just one hit now.”

“Yeah, I don’t get used as a punching bag anymore.”

I pause and look at him.

“I’m actually respected where I am now.”

“You’re respected for being a club whore? That’s real fucking respectful.”

He scoffs and walks over to me. He spits on my tattoo.

“This makes you their property. You seem to forget that you were my property first.”

He takes his knife and proceeds to cut the tattoo off. The searing pain as the blade goes in is horrendous. He’s having a hard time grabbing the top of the skin because the blood is making it slippery. I scream out, which earns me a punch in the face.

“Scream again and this blade will eviscerate you,”

he replies as he wipes the blood from the knife on my shirt.

He stands in front of me, holding my skin he just cut off in his hands. He admires his handiwork, then throws it in the ashtray and sets it on fire. My arm feels like it’s burning. This asshole just took the one thing that gave me pride about myself, and all I could do is sit here and take his abuse.

Looking around, I see he’s still in our crappy little apartment. Figures. He never has had any aspirations to better himself.

“Okay. You’ve had your fun, now take these ties off.”

My arm is still throbbing. It reminds me of a quote my mom used to say about pain. She would say it smarts. I never realized what that meant, but today I completely get it. My arm smarts.

He turns around, and there’s a dead look in his eyes.

“Darling, I’m not finished with you. You belong to me. You need that pounded through your hard fucking head.”

I’m used to him hitting me, but I’m not ready for this version of him. He’s out of control. I wonder what Ezekial is doing. I miss him so much. Billy walks over to me and cuts the zip ties from my wrists. I think he’s finally letting me go, but seconds later, I realize I’m so, so wrong. He has two more zip ties, and he uses them to tie my hand to the arm rests of the chair I’m in. He continues to do the same on the other side. I’m so frustrated, I start to cry. He just sneers at me. I know I’m in trouble. I let my mind wander and think about being in Ezekial’s arms. I know Billy will kill me. At least, for a short time, I was happier than I’ve ever been.

Billy walks over to me with a nail gun in his hand.

“Straighten your hands out,”

he mutters.

I refuse and ball my hands into fists. That’s when he strikes me again. I start to fade off until I feel the most agonizing pain ever...

He nailed my hand to the armrest.

Then, he proceeds to do the other. I scream bloody murder when he hits me again. I feel like I’m going to vomit.

“Stop hitting me!”

I try to get through to him.

“Don’t tell me what to do, bitch. You wanted the ties off of your hands. You got what you asked for.”

I look down and see he removed the ties now that both of my hands are nailed to the wooden armrests. I know he plans to torture me until he kills me. I’ve resigned myself to the inevitable.